I follow football because I like it as a game.

Whether we like it or not, football, almost more than anything else, defines who we are as nation. The heart of England now beats at Wembley rather than Westminster Abbey. In a Britain crisscrossed by many social and cultural gulfs, football is something that can act as a vital bridge between otherwise alienated individuals and communities. It is one of the few neutral subjects (along with our weather) that one can use to open up a conversation with a total stranger!

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Why is church coffee so often bad?

Not all church coffee is bad, but the issue that poor church coffee raises is deeper and more troubling. It is that much of what we do as churches can often be described as substandard, second best, mediocre or weak.

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Cumbria Tragedy

Few events have grabbed public attention in the UK recently more than the appalling random and brutal shootings in Cumbria in which Derrick Bird killed twelve people and wounded another eleven before turning his gun on himself. These tragic events have shocked and perplexed us; the papers have been full of analysis in which the word evil has been unusually prominent. No attempt to deal with these events can avoid this aspect and I offer some comments of my own.

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Why should Christians be involved in politics?

Some Christians argue that it is not our business to be involved in politics. First, because we have other matters on which to concentrate: getting people to heaven is more important than trying to straighten out a fallen world. Second, because politics is so corrupt that we must keep a distance, lest we become contaminated. A third argument is that God is sovereign, so he can be trusted to take care of politics.

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The awakening of the religious in politics?

Alistair Campbell famously informed us that British politicians ‘do not do God’. At this election time a related question ought to be asked: ‘Do the religious do politics?’ The answer, it seems, is that they do and increasingly so – something that ought to give the political parties pause for thought. Particular interest ought to be focused on that substantial sector that I belong to – the Evangelicals.

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What will life be like for the church in 2020?

I was asked by Charisma Magazine in the USA to respond to the question: What will life be like for the church in 2020? I thought you might be interested in seeing my reply below.

Heading towards financial, moral and social bankruptcy it is hard to be optimistic about the future of Britain. Yet amid the gloom, I see rays of encouragement and hope. My predictions?

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Here is J.John’s contribution to Premier’s Thought of the Day, which were recorded at Premier in January 2010. This goes out each weekday morning in their Breakfast Show.

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Where is God? God and the Haiti Earthquake

Where is God? That question is an understandable reaction to the appalling earthquake in Haiti where on January 10, 2010 around 200,000 people died in under a minute. A second question follows upon it: how can anyone believe – or even want to believe – in a God who can crumble houses onto families, topple hospitals onto patients and collapse schools on children? Here we face the old challenge of the sceptic: if, as we Christians claim, God is both all-powerful and good then why did this happen? Surely, they say, only one of two conclusions is possible and neither leaves the idea of the Christian God intact. Either we must conclude that God couldn't stop the earthquake happening, in which case he isn't all-powerful or he wouldn't stop it happening, in which case he isn't good.

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What, in the briefest terms, is the parable of the Prodigal all about? The answer is that it is a celebration of grace. If we define grace as ‘unconditional kindness given to an undeserving recipient at an uncomfortable cost’, we see that the parable illustrates all three aspects. We see in the younger son someone who is utterly undeserving. We see in the father, both in the gift of unconditional kindness and in the way he humiliates himself to bring the rebellious son back into the family, something of the uncomfortable cost of grace. These clearly show aspects of how God – Father, Son and Spirit – sacrificially pours out his love on us.

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Did you know that most people’s anxiety is focused and preoccupied with 40% of things that will never happen, 30% of things relating to the past that can’t be changed, 12% of things relating to other people’s criticism, which is generally untrue, and 10% of things relating to health, which often gets worse with stress and negative thinking. Only 8% of the time do they worry about real concerns that will need to be faced. So, if only about 8% of all the issues in our lives really turn out to be ‘something’ why is it that we spend so much time worrying and being highly anxious and stressed about all the rest?

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